Cadmium telluride (CdTe) films are one of the leading commercial thin film used in photovoltaic (PV) technology with general manufacturing costs <$0.59/WP and lab efficiencies of greater than 22%. These films eclipse performance records for multi-crystalline silicon based photovoltaic cells and thin-film copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) based thin-film based photovoltaic cells. One challenge in manufacturing cadmium telluride films is the high fabrication costs and the ability to lower capital costs in order to decrease the effective price per watt of CdTe based photovoltaics. Prior manufacturing techniques include close-spaced sublimation, vapor-transport deposition, physical-vapor deposition, sputter deposition, electrodeposition, metal-organic chemical-vapor deposition, spray deposition, and screen-print deposition. However, these processes suffer from various drawbacks such as high manufacturing expense and poor film quality. For example, deposition by closed-space sublimation (CSS) is a high vacuum technique that is energy intensive and requires high processing temperatures that contribute to relatively high manufacturing costs. While manufacturing costs have been cut in half by FSLR (First Solar Inc) in recent years, achieving the Department of Energy's 2020-2030 SunShot goals of a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) near $0.03 kWh will require an additional 50% reduction in manufacturing costs of CdTe films, as well as other costs. Since the direct material costs are dominated by module components other sources of cost reduction in photovoltaic technologies, such as reductions in manufacturing costs, are also necessary.